Middle Ground between full and no tech trading

from GalCiv2 Forums
Adding the no tech trading option in 1.1 is a nice touch, but there is a community of "middle ground" players who think tech trading is good, but overdone.

I want to see some suggestions for handling it in between the two options.

My solution:

1) Transfer cost for tech trading. The cost would be equal to the weeks required to research*100, with a random reduction of 0-50% for creative races...

2) Acquiring techs through trade lowers your tp gained in the turn by half the value of the techs gained (tp cannot go negative)
This would encourage only acquiring one tech/turn..
8,051 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I agree that although having a "no tech trade" option in the next version is a nice thing, it doesn't address the issue that tech trading is a very (and I think too) powerful tool the way it is now. The AI is too generous and credulous in my opinion.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
1) Weeks required to research * 100??? That's just insane. Any non-trivial tech would just never transfer before the end of a game.

2) That limits tech trading to early techs in late game, nothing else is possible. You could only ever trade techs that you could research in a turn or less, and remove your ability to research for a week... so why not just research it? That makes it utterly pointless.


What would be a better middle ground (IMO) is tech trading
1) Only between allies. Alliances don't play a very big role in the game and that would help make them something really useful to aim for.
2) Increase the cost of the trade based on howmuch higher your tech level is.
3) Like trade goods, you cannot further trade on techs you buy from other races.

That should tone it down a lot without making it pointless, and I can't see a major problem with that unless I'm missing something.
Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Monkey Pants, I like your suggestions 1) and 3), but I don't understand no. 2).

Oh, and I think you misunderstood arstal's first suggestion, it's not about a waiting time, it's about a cost (in bc, I guess) for tech transfers.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
E-stab: That's what I mean- thanks for clarification.

THe reason I wanted cost, was I figured that would slow the AI down, and the human- not allow for so much universal trading. Might also slow the early game rush down, and encourage raising your own research rate, to cut the cost. The problem with that is everyone would go 60% research. Maybe base it on max research capacity instead- so that exploit doesn't occur. Another possible exploit is people maxing research before tech trading, so base it on maximum.

The bc amount can be adjusted as needed: I'd suggest throwing it on a sliding scale as an option.

I like the above 1 and 3 suggestions as well.

Maybe, for the expansion, this should be a whole set of options, so players can customize how they want tech traded- eventually a standard will develop which is correct.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Simply rethink tech trade as a non-instant event: for example, if someone trades you laser V, you should have to wait x weeks before you can actually use/trade the technology. This cool-down period would reduce tech-spam and be based on how many techs you are 'jumping': if someone gives you laser V and you only have laser I, it should take longer. Not more than four-five turns, but long enough to prevent you trading for everything every turn.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
One could restrict tech trade to requiring pre-requisites to be traded before higher level techs (no Laser V without Laser IV, for example).

One could have techs only 1/2 tradable - trade a tech off someone and its research cost is reduced by 1/2 - you now have blueprints to get your scientists started on the tech!

Or it requires 1/2 (or possibly less, middle ground is 1/2 though) the techs cost to be lost (paid as a cost, but not to the player with the tech already) to make sense of a traded tech (but still allows instant transfere, just adds a cost to it).
One could easily implement this one with a slider at the game settup for % cost to trade a tech - 0% being what is currently available, 50% would be paying 1/2 the techs cost to research, but directly with cash, up to 100% where it costs just as much to get a tech from someone else (plus whatever they want for it too), as it would to research it yourself, and the only benefit to trading for it is that it is available instantly.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
ben's suggestions seem reasonable. It would be like "buying" a tech at half cost.
However it should be reduced a lot lower, as some techs can get into the thousands. Maybe make it so that if the tech is 3000 bc to reasearch, lower it to 999 but if it's 1500 use the decrease by 50% rule and make it 750bc. If it's under 1000 bc reduce by 50%
astral's suggestion seems a bit out of hand, and difficult to implement. How would you do weeks times 100bc. any tech that is more than 5 weeks to reasearch would hurt your economy, and would get rid of the benefit of trading
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You guys are forgetting diplomacy. The more diplonus you have, the more worth your tech-offer is.

The prerequisite idea is a very solid one. Perhaps it should be extended a little. Allow Laser V if other has Laser II, but not Plasma if others are still in the Laser-range. For the non-sequential techs just go one level down as a prerequisite (i.e. equivalent to the original idea)

The non-instant idea is also a very solid, reasonable suggestion. Just include the necessary sanity checks (it doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you had to wait 5 turns for a tech you bought which would have taken you 2 turns to research)

As for all the other cost-based approaches, i'm not convinced. Perhaps its simpler to implement the above ideas combined with cutting down on the AI's incentive to trade techs among themselves.

Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
One could restrict tech trade to requiring pre-requisites to be traded before higher level techs (no Laser V without Laser IV, for example).

One could have techs only 1/2 tradable - trade a tech off someone and its research cost is reduced by 1/2 - you now have blueprints to get your scientists started on the tech!

I like these two ideas a lot.
But I don't know whether Stardock is interested to make significant changes to tech trading at all...
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I kind of like tech trading how it is now, but I think there was an interesting suggestion made here: time delay after purchase. I would extend that slightly, however and make it negotiable. This would work for ships and planets also.

For example, I might choose to trade techs with another race for cash on the terms that I pay now and recieve delivery in 4 weeks. To get delivery in 2 weeks it would cost me more.

Same would go for ships and even planets. I could negotiate a turnover of a planet in 35 turns for a sum of X BCs with a "rush delivery fee" of X/35 BCs per turn under 35. If I've done my math correctly that would double the price to have it immediately.

This would still, I assume, be compatible with "trading anything for anything" in that the game already assigns a monetary value to all of your transactions anyway, so even if you'r trading a planet + ships for some techs, your transaction is still valued in terms of BCs. I might be wrong and the AI could be using some fuzzy logic in the tech trade, but I bet that's how it works.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Devalueing techs prices by how many races (include the minors in here) already know it might solve some of these issues. You won't make as big a profit from selling the tech to everyone (as is my current scheme - if I sell it to one, I may as well sell it to all or the AI will). This does does mean that the AIs (and you) will have an easier time staying at tech parity, though (whether this is good or bad depends on your viewpoint).